A Doctor in The House: A Memoir of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad (20 page)

The communists also gained control of the Pan-Malayan Federation of Trade Unions (PMFTU), which began to talk about taking the offensive. At a PMFTU Congress in Singapore, the Secretary of the Penang Federation of Trade Unions said that workers should be prepared to sacrifice their lives for the cause. Balan, on a visit to a European estate, claimed that his union had a membership of 13,700, covering 133 estates, and had the strength to take on anyone. Tough talk and bold, inflammatory propaganda were rife in 1948. A mass meeting of 100,000 was organised for May Day and further incitement to violence was planned throughout the Peninsula.

Only when the three European planters were murdered did the British realise the seriousness of the situation. The Government now had to admit it was not prepared and that its police force was far too small to tackle the growing number of armed and trained insurgents. Having the army and the air force at its disposal helped but the task was too big, so they decided to increase the strength of the police by setting up a special constabulary (SC). Almost all the Special Constables were Malays, men and women equipped only with shotguns and outdated rifles. They made up for this inadequacy in firepower with grim determination.

Their tenacity and courage won them an honoured place in our history books, as they fought valiantly during an MCP guerrilla attack on their doomed Bukit Kepong police station in Johor on 23 February 1950. More than 100 MCP guerrillas had laid siege on the poorly-manned station. Though they were heavily outnumbered the policemen, together with four Home Guardsmen, would not give up. When they did not respond to calls from the besieging force to surrender, the guerrillas set fire to the wooden building. The trapped policemen and their families, together with the Special Constables, died fighting desperately or were burnt alive. The

Home Guardsmen under Penghulu Ali,
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 who had set off from a village just a mile away to help the policemen, became unsuspecting victims of a cruel ambush. One of the Guardsmen was shot and killed. The bloody battle only stopped at dawn when the murderous guerrillas retreated. By that time, the police station had been completely razed. All that remained of that act of heroism were the charred remains of the policemen, their families and the four Home Guardsmen. In his book General Tun Ibrahim, who had been in charge of training the Home Guard, documented a horrific sight that met him when he arrived at the scene: the burnt body of a woman, who lay with her baby still clutched closely in her arms.
 

The situation was demonstrably beyond the Government’s capability, and the appointment of Sir Henry Gurney as Governor (he had been Chief Secretary to the Government of Palestine) did not improve matters. The Malays were wary of Gurney. They appreciated the complexity of the Malayan communist problem and Malay-Chinese antagonism, and did not want Gurney to conveniently equate it with the Arab-Jewish problem. This was at a time when Jewish terrorist groups, such as the Haganah and the Irgun Zvai Leumi, were violently attacking the British, blowing up the King David Hotel, the biggest international hotel in Jerusalem, where the British administration was based. The British Government delayed Gurney’s appointment slightly but set to work to get the Chinese community to back the Government in Malaya against the mainly Chinese insurgents.

Meanwhile, the communists continued their campaign of terror and intimidation, especially against those Chinese who were not their sympathisers. People who admitted to contributing money and food to the guerrillas did so, they said, not because they believed in the cause but because they had little trust in the Government’s ability to protect them. Events in China continued to influence the local Chinese. The communists had gained ground there and were also doing well in Burma and Indochina.

To the British, the Chinese in Malaya fell into four categories. The first were local-born Chinese who had been in Malaya for at least two generations. These included the Babas or Straits Chinese who identified closely with the country. They tended to speak English or Malay and were regarded as being naturally loyal to Malaya. The second consisted of local-born Chinese with immigrant parents. Although they spoke English, Chinese family traditions remained strong among them and they looked to the KMT to protect them from both the communists and possible threats from the Government. Politically, they were ambivalent, and their allegiance was uncertain. The third category consisted of local-born, non-English speaking Chinese of the first generation, whose fathers were immigrants. They had done well, valuing Malaya as a safe place for making money. A sub-group was made up of the labourer-children of labourer-immigrants who had little in common with other Malayan communities. The British described them as Chinese colonists in Malaya, saying that nothing could be done to convert them into Malayan citizens. Their outlook was entirely Chinese, and they occupied squatter areas at the fringe of the jungle where they built Chinese schools. Some of these areas housed Chinese secret societies. In the fourth classification, the British identified newcomers born in China who had the same qualities, only more intensely so.
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In facing the challenge of armed insurrection, the British had to devise a plan to counter the communist influence upon the Chinese community. A political grouping or party of loyal Malayan Chinese seemed to be the appropriate answer to this. It would be based largely in the first of the four sub-categories, but it had to be capable of drawing support from the others, especially the second. One of the tasks of this party would be to neutralise Malay resentment against the Chinese. To do this, it had to be centred on a nucleus of Chinese who were already Federal citizens. One year after Gurney sent a letter on “Disorders and Ways of Enlisting Chinese Support” to the Colonial Office in London, the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA) made its appearance, led by Tun Tan Cheng Lock, a Straits-born Malay- and English-speaking Chinese from Malacca.

To win local allegiance, the British administration needed to draw into its structure a few local political leaders. Sir Malcolm MacDonald, Governor-General for the Federation of Malaya and Singapore, created the Communities Liaison Committee and appointed Chinese, Indian and

Malay leaders to it. Prominent among its members were Tan Cheng Lock, Datuk E.E.C. Thuraisingham of the Indo-Ceylonese community and Dato’ Onn Jaafar of UMNO. Yet the British reading of the situation lacked finesse—one may even suggest that it lacked sincerity. In fact, there was no need to persuade the Malays to cooperate as they had not objected to the formation of the MCA. The issue at hand seemed to be the opening of UMNO to all races, which the British wanted before talks on self-government could begin.

For this, they turned to Dato’ Onn, who was not easy to convince. He noted that every time a new proposal was made, the British, preoccupied with their tactical objective of enlisting and consolidating Chinese support, would ask only what the Chinese thought. An increasingly bitter and irritable Dato’ Onn complained that it was the Malays who should have been asked what they thought.

It became clear to him that if he did not take steps to protect Malay interests, no one would, certainly not the British. He went to London to meet the Colonial Secretary, mainly over his concern about the appointment of the Deputy High Commissioner. Dato’ Onn was the obvious Malay choice for Deputy High Commissioner and he was backed by UMNO. But the British and the Malay Rulers were against it as the High Commissioner took precedence over the Rulers. If the Deputy High Commissioner ever served as Acting High Commissioner, he would have precedence protocol-wise over the Rulers and that was not acceptable to them. When it came to subtleties, gradations and entitlements of status, British colonial proconsuls and Malay Rulers shared similar sensitivities. Furthermore, Dato’ Onn alienated the Colonial Office by asking for 10 million pounds to help the Malays go into business. This was born out of his worry that as more and more Chinese became federal citizens, the Malays would be further sidelined. He also blamed the British for the communist insurgency, saying that they had been the ones to bring in the Chinese. This frankness did not endear him to the British.

Usually cool-headed, Dato’ Onn lost his temper on many occasions during his discussions with the British. He did not understand why the Colonial Government could not see the fairness of his requests. As far as the British were concerned, he only wanted Malaya for the Malays when in fact, he was trying to keep watch over the Malay community and its endangered interests in the flurry of fast-unfolding developments. Despite all this, MacDonald believed that Dato’ Onn was a genuine and skilled statesman and the true leader of the Malays. He also observed that Dato’ Onn had pushed for the entry of non-Malays into the Johor State Civil Service.

In the end, MacDonald, a consummate diplomat, was able to persuade Dato’ Onn that allowing non-Malays into UMNO was the right thing to do. The British were especially fearful that if the Malays came to power after Independence, they might suppress other races, which would gravely affect British investments. Their concern over the development of a stable multiracial polity in Malaya was not about human rights—it was driven by business.

Misreading the feelings of Malays towards the Chinese, Dato’ Onn brought the proposal to open UMNO’s membership to non-Malays to the party’s Supreme Council, which emphatically rejected it. As a gentleman, he now found his position untenable. He left the party, accompanied by his son, Tun Hussein, the Datuk Panglima Bukit Gantang (Abdul Wahab Toh Muda Abdul Aziz), Datuk Zainal Abidin, Datuk Nik Kamil and several other senior leaders of UMNO. This was unfortunate as he should have been the one to gain independence for Malaya. As it was, he went on to set up the Independence of Malaya Party, which disbanded in 1953.

Bereft of leaders of calibre, UMNO was forced to look around. Tun Razak Hussein, the most senior of the remaining leaders, proposed Tunku Abdul Rahman as head of the party even though he was not involved in UMNO at that time. Two others indicated their willingness to replace Dato’ Onn: Haji Ahmad Fuad and Haji Mohamad Yusof. In the contest which followed, the Tunku won hands down. A disappointed Ahmad Fuad left to found the Pan-Malayan Islamic Party, or PMIP, later known by its Malay acronym PAS.

Meanwhile on the security front, the Emergency was still on and guerrilla attacks were frequent. Despite this the Tunku set about rehabilitating and strengthening UMNO. He was not as eloquent a speaker as Dato’ Onn but his royal background and his friendly and approachable ways made him popular.

In this whirlwind of events in Malaya, it is worth noting that the British believed the African countries were making better progress than Malaya towards self-government. One key issue of concern to the British was the economic position of the Malays. They feared that, should the Malays gain full political control without holding any substantial economic stake in the country, they would expropriate non-Malay interests. They expected greater stability in West Africa at that time, where the groundnut and cocoa crops were the products of thriving peasant enterprise. On the road to national freedom, it was evident that ordinary Africans enjoyed a greater role in the economy of their countries than the Malays did in theirs.

Our own pace towards Independence was slowed because the insurgency showed no sign of abating. The number of communist bandits had increased to an estimated 5,000. Malayan civilians were frequently murdered by the communists and wherever they could, the guerrillas isolated and intimidated entire communities by cutting power lines and blocking water supplies. Since the British were responsible for the security of Malaya and its defence, funds for operations against the terrorists had to be provided by the treasury of His Majesty’s Government. The communists were proving to be a tough and tenacious force. Despite realising that the cost of keeping them at bay was rising, the British Government failed to allocate the necessary funds. This was despite the fact that Sir Shenton Thomas, Governor and High Commissioner before the Japanese invasion, acknowledged that Malaya had contributed a great deal to the British war effort. It seemed the British were now beating a hasty retreat, not from violence but from rising prices.

When Lieutenant-General Sir Harold Briggs was appointed Director of Operations for the army in 1950, he drew up the Briggs Plan to clear the Peninsula of the “bandits”, beginning in the south in Johor and moving north right up to the Thai border. The thick jungles were the guerrillas’ secret weapon: once an area had been officially cleared, they emerged from hiding and resumed their earlier positions. But Briggs was not to be outfoxed. Part of his plan was to starve the guerrillas out by rigidly controlling the movement of foodstuff. This eventually led to the resettlement of squatters from the fringes of the jungle to New Villages near urban areas, where they could be prevented from supplying food and money to the guerrillas.

When Sir Gerald Templer became High Commissioner in 1952, he was determined to make an impression. When the people of Tanjung Malim, a town in south Perak, refused to give the authorities information on a communist attack there, Templer imposed a curfew on the whole town and regulated the supply of food to it. By this one decidedly unyielding move, he showed that he meant business. Thereafter he received much more cooperation and terrorist attacks dwindled. The areas in which their activities had stopped completely were declared “white”, meaning completely free from communist terror. Night curfews were lifted in these parts and people were once again able to move around freely. Still, a large portion of the Peninsula remained black. With the appointment of Templer, the character of the anti-terrorist campaign changed and the Government began to recover its nerve and seize the initiative.

Fijian soldiers, the East African Rifles and Gurkhas were given a bigger role alongside the British. The combined force was known as the Malaya Command, not the Malayan army, though its forces were augmented locally. Templer insisted that the officer corps in the Malay forces be multiracial and include Chinese, Indians and Eurasians. His forces soon had the communists on the run. Once the Chinese squatters were relocated to the New Villages, it was communist supply lines that were now cut off. The importance of the New Villages in the anti-guerrilla war cannot be overstated.